IRVING — Asked to describe her son Zack, the Cowboys’ 6-4, 308-pound first-round draft choice, Pam Martin took a breath and thought for a moment.

“Sweet,” she finally said.

Don’t be immediately skeptical and dismissive, assuming that the analysis is coming from the most biased of perspectives.

Pam Martin is hardly alone in her assessment.

Back at Notre Dame, where Zack was a four-year starter, his offensive line coach, Harry Hiestand, told reporters that the Fighting Irish’s stalwart left tackle was “the picture of what an All-American is.”

Paul Longo, the school’s strength and conditioning coach, claimed that whenever a positive example was needed, “you point and say, there is Zack Martin.”

And besides, if you want to know who Zack Martin’s sternest critic may be, you already have heard the voice.

“My mother was tougher than my father,” he said last week between rookie training sessions at Valley Ranch. “She always had her two cents to put in after a game.”

Then came a nod and a shrug.

And a smile.

Meanwhile, back home in Indianapolis, Pam Martin almost immediately regretted uttering the S-word in a conversation about her middle child, who arrived in Dallas billed to be a stellar starter on the offensive line for the next decade.

Not good for the image. “Mean Joe” is a yes. “Sweet Zack” is a no.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” she began to retreat. “Zack might not like that. He’s certainly not sweet on the field.”

But mother didn’t back down when asked about her postgame critiques of her son, who started on two state championship teams at Indianapolis’ Bishop Chatard High School before heading to Notre Dame, where he was a two-time captain and owns the school record for consecutive starts at 52.

To be clear, Pam isn’t the Martin parent who played college football. That would be her husband, Keith. He played three years of defensive tackle at Kentucky and earned Southeastern Conference all-academic honors while majoring in accounting during the early 1980s.

But Pam, an intramural swimmer at Kentucky, did serve as a student trainer with the Wildcats football team for 21/2 years. Her assignment? Taking care of offensive lineman. She watched her charges intently. She listened to their coaches. Husband and son agree she is a student of line play.

“We have always offered constructive criticism to each other in our family,” Pam Martin said. “It has never been exactly a love fest when we talk about sports. We like to point things out.”

Building blocks

Asked to identify the most important ingredient that pushed him along the road from middle school football to the NFL, Zack Martin, sitting in a Valley Ranch meeting room, didn’t hesitate.

“Family,” he said. “I don’t have any crazy talents. But I do have people who nurtured me, guided me and advised me what might be best.”

At 23, Zack is the second of Keith and Pam’s three football lineman sons.

Older brother Josh, 25, played alongside Zack for one season in high school. On offense, sophomore Zack played right tackle next to senior Josh, the tight end. On defense, they played opposite ends.

Zack and younger brother Nick, 21, started on the same offensive line last season at Notre Dame. Zack anchored it at left tackle, with Nick, 6-4½ and 295, two bodies away at center.

The highlight of Zack’s high school career?

“Winning a state championship my sophomore year with Josh,” he said.

The highlight of his college career?

“Playing on the same line with Nick,” he answered.

Zack Martin redshirted his first year at Notre Dame in 2009. That made him eligible for the 2013 draft. He was projected to be a second-round pick. He sensed that if he returned, he might work his way into the first round. He also loved playing for Hiestand, the third of his line coaches at Notre Dame. And he enjoyed the camaraderie of his football classmates, who likewise had a year of eligibility remaining even if they all did not share his NFL potential.

But the primary reason he stayed at Notre Dame, took graduate-level business classes in the fall of 2013, started every game, became the first offensive lineman in half a century to be named MVP of a bowl game and boosted his draft standing was family.

“It would be the only time I was guaranteed I could start on the same line as Nick,” he said.

Josh Martin, who at 6-4, 225 pounds is the smallest of the three brothers, played defensive end at the University of Indianapolis, a Division II school not far from the family home. He works as the operations director of an indoor sports complex in Indianapolis and, as Zack happily volunteered, is contemplating relocating to Dallas.

Josh described the three brothers, born 38 months apart, as a “rat pack” whose members enjoyed each other’s company while they were growing up. It was mandatory that each had to be accepted by his brothers’ friends. And while each of the three had his own bedroom, they preferred the comfort of sleeping in the same room.

“It’s tough to explain, to put into words,” Josh said. “But there is something special about sweating and bleeding and blocking next to someone you grew up with.

“It’s satisfying and rewarding beyond explanation,” he said. “That’s who we are.”

Fatherly advice

Asked what his middle son learned from him, Keith Martin, who grew up on a farm in rural Kentucky, considered the question.

In addition to his undergraduate degree, Keith earned a master’s in business at Kentucky before ultimately settling in with his longtime employer. When the employer moved from Kansas City to Indianapolis, he dutifully followed.

“If you really want something, you really have to work at it,” the father said, reiterating the core philosophy he passed on to Zack and his brothers. “You have to grind, attack it every day. You can’t rest on your laurels.”

OK, let’s get it out of the way now.

Keith Martin works for the NCAA, which regulates much of college athletics. But as Zack always volunteered to friends and teammates, he’s not in enforcement. Keith works the business side. He is currently the organization’s managing director of marketing and broadcast alliances.

Father said he didn’t steer his son to football. Zack just naturally gravitated to the game. As for playing on the offensive line, it was dictated early. It was a size thing. That’s the only place Zack fit, according to youth league rules.

In fifth grade, Zack told his father he wanted to play on the defensive line. He asked how that could happen.

“Lose weight,” his father told him.

And so Zack did. He shed a dozen pounds.

“Like everything with Zack, it came on his own,” the father said. “When he wants something, he is determined. Always has been.”

Father coached son in middle school and marveled at the boy’s innate ability to read gaps, remember plays and know where each teammate should be at all times. When father lined up against son in the family backyard, the old defensive lineman showed the boy how to read movements and techniques and learn the proper angles to best win his battles.

Father rarely had to repeat a lesson. The boy learned quickly.

“Football savvy” is how father described his son’s most valuable attribute. “He always has been a student of the game.”

Certainly colleges took notice of Zack, whose high school team won a second midsize Class 3A state title after Josh’s graduation. But recruitment moved up a notch after Zack attended a summer camp for offensive linemen in Michigan.

His parents weren’t immediately in love with the idea when Zack asked if he could join some friends there. After considering the request and quizzing him on what he expected to get out of the camp, they decided he could go. But, they warned, he would have to have some skin in the game and earn some of the money to pay the cost.

Zack earned more than enough. Recruiters from the big schools showed renewed interest.

Rivals.com ranked him as the 22nd-best offensive tackle in the national high school class of 2009. Notre Dame wanted the kid who attended Catholic schools his whole life and lived only 2½ hours away. But so did Stanford, Indiana, Michigan, and, of course, Kentucky, where the Martin family had season tickets.

Zack wasn’t so sure about Notre Dame. It took a second trip to South Bend to convince him he had found a second home.

Charlie Weis was the coach who recruited Zack. Keith Martin, wise in the ways of college football, cautioned his son not to go to a school because he was smitten with a coach. Zack ultimately played four years for Weis’ successor, Brian Kelly.

“Zack always did his homework,” his father said. “He studied rosters. He knew Notre Dame had two senior tackles when he committed, but after they were gone, he saw an opportunity to play fairly early. I think that was the clincher.”

Just as he had thought he could, Zack moved into the starting lineup at the start of his sophomore year of school and never left.

He graduated in four years. Once he made up his mind to return for a fifth year, his parents advised to make sure he graduated in four even if it meant some challenging academic acrobatics in the spring of 2013.

“The most important position for him was to be in position to graduate,” Keith Martin said. “I told him to make sure you complete what you started. The rest would come.”

Far from the glitz

Asked about the day the next piece of the “rest” would come, the day he would be the 16th overall pick in the NFL draft, the day he would become a Cowboy, Zack Martin provided the most predictable of answers.

He was conspicuously absent from the televised draft circus in New York this month. Thirty players from around the country accepted invitations.

Zack was invited.

He declined, opting instead to stay home in Indianapolis.

Why not revel in the glitz of Radio City Musical Hall, where he was certain not to remain a lingering object of attention in the waiting room?

The answer is obvious.

“I wanted to be with my family and friends and be relaxed at home,” he said.

Was it a tough decision?

“Not at all.”

Sweet son.

IN THE KNOW

Zack Martin

Position: Offensive tackle/guard

Pick: No. 16 overall

College: Notre Dame

Height: 6-4

Weight: 308

Notable: Martin is considered one of the safest picks in this draft. ... He started a school-record 52 consecutive games, playing the majority of time at left tackle. ... The two-time team captain’s best trait is probably his ability to play any of the five offensive line positions. ... A two-time All-American, he closed his collegiate career by winning MVP honors at the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. ... The one knock on Martin is that he lacks ideal arm length. ... His experience in Notre Dame’s zone-blocking scheme should help his transition into what the Cowboys do up front.

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